Conversation drifts across a table. “What do you do?” It’s a classic conversation starter. Maybe “Where are you from?” comes up just as often. It’s those basics about identity that either bond us together or throw us apart. Or at least tigger certain ingrained responses.
In a society, like ours that has a long tail of class-based judgement, these questions have greater implications than elsewhere. In of itself that is a questionable remark. Leave the UK and similar markers create stereotypes that are easily recognisable. US comedy is full of them. For fans of the classic series like MASH[1] or Frasier[2] they are there is spades. Situation comedy often depends on misunderstandings and social tensions.
Anyway, I’m writing this when it comes to mind what a big gulf there is between those of us who had “desk jobs” and people who worked far more with their hands and wits. The labels of administrator or artisan can be stamped out so easily in British society.
A conversation went like this – I was a coach builder. I built lorries. I could never have done a desk job. My response was – I was lucky. Sometimes, I sat at a desk under piles of paper. Or in front of a keyboard. Sometimes, I travelled to, just about anywhere, where they built or flew aircraft and got to deal with real hardware. But however much there was an overlap between us two seniors at a bar, there was still a gulf that was probably born of a dividing line that was drawn when we were teenagers. Streaming people away from academic study was a grading system, certainly in the 1970s.
You might say that these traditional social barriers are a thing of the past. They are not, are they? In fact, in powerful places the line between people with real lived experience in craft or public service type roles is growing. Take a cross section of Members of Parliament. How many can count an experience of working a skilled trade or hands-on time doing something useful?
The Oxbridge mafia is as in control as it ever has been. Although recent examples from that background should be enough to put people off. The leisurely stroll from Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) to the green benches is so much simpler than any other pathway.
I love the revitalisation of apprenticeships[3]. However, that word now means something different from what it once did. There weren’t such notions as intermediate or advanced apprenticeships in my time, although they were implicit. Just a few found a sponsor and a pathway to a degree course on the same level as those who stayed on at school.
As much as providing new pathways the social context still matters. Elevating the status of apprenticeships matters. This is a first-class stream. From it can come future leaders.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068098/
[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106004/
[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z4n7kmn
John Vincent 